A lot of guys seem to get excited by the idea of women kissing each other but many are enormously leery of men who do the same thing with males.

Having pashed a couple of blokes in my time, I know there are few better ways to quieten a dinner party than admitting to some guy-on-guy action.

Confess to the same in a pub with a group of boofy blokes and you'll turn more heads than a two-up ring on Anzac Day and earn yourself a nickname such as "the Vagitarian".

The thing is, I reckon there are lots of men who've had a close encounter with another guy, whether it be as a youngster checking out each other's plumbing or when a little older, under the influence of various intoxicants.

However, guys tend not to talk about it, fearing they'll be labelled homosexual ...

One particularly cold morning this winter, I went to my closet and flicked through my jackets and found myself having this conversation in my head.

"Can't wear the dark leather one because she says I look a pimp in it. Can't wear that tan suede one because she says it makes me look like Jerry Seinfeld. Can't wear that RM Williams one, she hates that even though I was wearing it when I first met her," and on and on.

That left the black woolen jacket that she - my partner - had bought me but which I've been wearing more than a smile lately.

The thing is, all the other jackets I have in my wardrobe have been either bought or approved of by ex-girlfriends, yet here I was again second guessing my look based on what the woman in my life liked or disliked ...

In his book Outliers, writer Malcolm Gladwell says the typical aircraft accident "involves seven consecutive human errors ... the result of an accumulation of minor difficulties and seemingly trivial malfunctions" and I reckon you can apply the same explanation to the plane crash that is Matthew Newton.

In the past month, the former X Factor host's fall has been blamed on everything from psychological problems, substance abuse and anger management issues to the actor simply "being a dog".

His parents Bert and Patti Newton, appearing on A Current Affair, suggested a bipolar disorder might also be responsible.

Whether that proves to be correct, it's fair to say Newton is an example of many things going wrong at once. Unfortunately for his girlfriend Rachel Taylor, it ended with her allegedly being violently abused ...

Many of you will probably remember The Chaser's APEC stunt from a couple of years ago, in which one of their number dressed as Osama bin Laden and penetrated massive security, subsequently making headlines around the world.

At the time, I wrote The Chaser's "shtick is wearing thin", that "they are no doubt a gifted group of smart, funny guys, but in a lot of ways they remind me of the annoying bloke at the pub who picks fights, safe in the knowledge he has a big, street-fighting mate standing in the corner to bail him out of trouble".

That "big street-fighting mate" is, of course, their security guards, but after about the 300th comment on that particular post telling me I was just jealous of The Chaser guys, I sat back and reflected on my motivations for writing it and had to admit there was a seed of envy in there ...

A few months back I was diagnosed with a suspected melanoma - which if you don't know is a malignant tumour that causes most (up to 75 per cent) of skin cancer deaths.

Luckily for me, mine was caught at pretty much the earliest possible stage you can detect a melanoma, with three pathologists all on the fence as to how dangerous it was, but all of them erring on the side of caution.

It meant that a few weeks ago I had the region cut out of my back, copped thirty stitches for my trouble and have spent pretty much every day since my diagnosis thanking my stars I went to have my skin checked.

With summer just around the corner, my question to you dear readers is - have you? ...

If you don't know, Australia has a new national soccer coach and his name is Holger Osieck.

You pronounce that Os-ick, but this was something of a surprise to Dave Hall, the editor of Australian Football Weekly as well as The Full90, the official match day program of the A-League soccer competition.

The day after Osieck's appointment, Hall penned a blog post for The Punch website in which he queried whether Osieck was "a real name or just a random group of letters pulled out of a Scrabble bag?"

Said Hall: "'Holger?' asked one of my mates, 'isn't that some fancy bread?'"

Now, I'm sure Hall's a good bloke who was just having a bit of fun, but there's no way known to man he writes that gag if his surname was Mohammad, Boostsakakis or Nguyen ...

Apologies to those of you reading this who are not white; I'm not trying to lord it over all the other skin shades, though if I was going to do any lording, I'm certainly the right colour.

It just struck me a couple of weeks ago during the election campaign that there are a whole bunch of complaining white people in this country (myself included) and we rarely hear anybody stand up and embrace how good being white is.

The world is our frickin' oyster! Sure half the planet hates us, but most of them pretend to like us in case we bomb them, so the only things we really have to worry about is obscene weight gain, skin cancer and the Taliban ...

For those of you unfamiliar with the roiling cauldron of dog vomit that is NSW state politics, yet another Labor government minister lost his job last week when it was revealed he'd accessed porn and gambling sites on his work computer.

The minister for Ports and Water, Paul McLeay, said he was "humiliated and embarrassed" to be sprung admitting "it wasn't a one-off. It was a mistake and I accept that the community expects a higher standard and that's why I offered my resignation."

I'm the last one to defend a politician, especially a boofhead who's so technically ignorant he doesn't know the cardinal rule for watching porn at work, but I fail to see why an activity that is legal in the privacy of your own home, should see you lose your job.

Sure, it's a little distasteful thinking about a government minister squeezing one out at his desk on the taxpayer's dime, but so is half the drivel you see on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube and McLeay would still be in a job if he'd accessed any of those sites at work ...

Even when there's not an election campaign going on, do you ever feel like you're floating in a vast sea of bullshit?

You step out your front door and people say "nice to see you", "what a cute kid" or "we should catch up" when all they want to do is pinball off you with a minimum of obligation.

Turn on the radio and talkback clowns are wailing about morality or championing the working class before they retire to their multimillion-dollar homes to gargle Grange.

You get to the office and the sales manager is banging on about company loyalty or key performance indicators when you know he's the biggest bludger in the place and would open your jugular with his BMW key if his job was on the line ...

Impending fatherhood can be pretty terrifying and one of the worst aspects of it is that other dads, knowing what expectant fathers are going through, tend to stoke your fears.

They'll say things like "that's the end of your life", "you're goooone", "hope you had plenty of sex 'cos you won't be any more" or any of a thousand other comments designed to make you twist in the bedsheets at 2am wondering what the hell you've got yourself into.

In many ways you are the apprentice who's new on the job and it's the mission of all the senior workers to get you to make a fool of yourself by going to the shop and asking for striped paint.

As I've mentioned several times, I am a new father, but I've largely held back from writing about it because I don't want to be a bore. However, it is an important topic to tackle, so here goes ...

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